Prentice, persecute me without cause, but my heart stands in awe of thy words. I rejoice at thy word as one who finds great spoil. I hate and despise falsehood, but I love thy law. Seven times a day I praise thee because of thy righteous ordinances. Those who love thy law have great peace, and nothing causes them to stumble. I hope for thy salvation, O Lord, and I do thy commandments. My soul keeps thy testimonies, and I love them exceedingly. I keep thy precepts and thy testimonies, for all my ways are before thee." The thing that stands out for me in just these few short verses is the reality, a reality that probably escapes most of us most of the time. And that is that those who love thy law have great peace. So somehow, some way, as we study God's law, as we think upon it, and as we contemplate it, as C.S. Lewis said, we are brought to peace. It doesn't happen automatically. It's not a binary thing. It happens over the course of time, over the course of a life. So I would encourage you, listen today. that you may begin to have peace today, tomorrow, and forevermore. Amen. We've got to turn your Bibles to the book of Ezekiel. And we'll continue our study of this great little text, Ezekiel 14. We're on just a couple more weeks. Your bulletin is an outline, I encourage you to use that and follow along as we study this passage together. Ezekiel 14 is a climax in the section where it resides, 12 through 24, as it is describing the reason why God severely disciplined his people. The discipline, as you know, was exile. It means the destruction of a city, of a nation, people going in chains and bonds to another land and having their lives turned upside down. All of this, get this, all of this was God's discipline and grace in the life of his people. And 12 through 24 gives us the rationale for why God acted the way that he did. And 13 and 14 is the climax, really a mini climax in the larger section of 12 through 24. So we're focusing on this section to give you a sense of this section, our study of this book. 14.1-11 is the text before us. We'll be looking specifically at verse 5 and verse 8 this morning as we look at the reason for why God deigned to discipline his people the way he did. When God's people gathered for covenant renewal in the Old Covenant, they stood at the reading of God's Word. This is a covenant renewal moment of our lives. Following their practice, let us likewise stand at the reading of God's word. And now the word of our Lord. Then some of the elders of Israel came to me and sat down before me, this is Ezekiel the prophet, and the word of the Lord came to me saying, son of man, these men have set up their idols in their hearts and put right before their faces the stumbling block of their iniquity. Should I be consulted by them at all? Therefore speak to them and tell them, thus says the Lord God. Any man of the house of Israel sets up his idols in his heart, puts right before their face the stumbling block of his iniquity, and then comes to the prophet how the Lord will be taught, will be brought to give him an answer in the matter in view of the multitude of his sins. in order to lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel, who are estranged from me through all their idols. Therefore say to the house of Israel, thus says the Lord God, repent and turn away from your idols and turn your faces away from all your abominations. For anyone of the house of Israel or of the immigrants who stay in Israel, who separates himself from me, sets up his idols in his heart, puts right before his face the stumbling block of his Iniquity and then comes to the prophet to inquire of me for himself. I the Lord will be brought to answer him and my own person and I shall set my face against that man and Make him a sign in a proverb and I shall cut him off from among my people. So you will know that I am the Lord But if the prophet is prevailed upon to speak a word it is I the Lord who have prevailed upon that prophet and I will stretch out my hand against him and destroy him from among my people Israel and And they will bear the punishment of their iniquity as the iniquity of the inquirer is, so the iniquity of the prophet will be. In order that the house of Israel may no longer stray from me, and no longer defile themselves with all their transgressions, thus they will be my people, and I shall be their God, declares the Lord God. Let's pray. Father, what a privilege it is to come this day and fellowship around your word. Truths into which angels long to look before they were written. Truths by which you transform a people into your bride. Father, bless this study this morning, we pray. Bless our time together. Open our eyes. Humble us. And Lord, transform us by the renewing of your word. Preach to our minds. Transform them to your glory. We entrust this time now to you, oh Lord, give me unction and power and use it to glorify your name and mold your people into the image of Jesus Christ. We pray in Christ's name, amen. Please be seated. Thomas Watson wrote, you have the quote in your outline, there is as much difference between sin and the wicked and sin and the godly as between poison being in a serpent and poison being in a man. Poison in a serpent is in its natural place and is delightful, but poison in a man's body is harmful and he uses antidotes to expel it. So sin in a wicked man is delightful, being in its natural place, but sin in a child of God is burdensome." So true, isn't it? Yes, in our flesh there's a pleasure to sin. Hebrews 11.25 tells us that. We enjoy sin, but as children of God who love the Lord, we know that sin is harmful to us. Sin is a poison in our bodies. Peter described it using these words, Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul. Our sin, we confess, wages war against our soul. The primary casualty in this war against our soul as Christians is not our salvation. It's not our right standing before Christ. The casualty in this war is the health of our walk with God. In fact, notice verse 4 of chapter 14. I'm sorry, verse 5. God was going to discipline them as he did in order to lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel who are estranged from me through their idols. What impact did sin have in the life of God's people? It estranged them from the Lord. The word for estrangement here is a rather strong word. It is translated as separation, alienation, and so estrangement. Sin does nothing more in your life, other than a passing pleasure, it does nothing more in the believer's life than to estrange them from their love relationship with God. God is a loving being who draws near to us, wipes our tears, holds our hands, bears us up, binds our wounds. And yet in our sin we would reject all of that, And so be estranged in our walk. Do you know estrangement in your walk with God? Do you know what it's like to, I think we all do, to pray and just feel like your prayers are bouncing off the ceiling, to feel impotent in the study of God's word, to open God's word and just see words. And in comparison to those times when we open God's word and we feast upon the word as the psalmist, thy word was found and I ate it. And it became the joy of my heart and my life. Estrangement are those times when we open the word of God and we go, it's just words. It's like reading a secular novel, a secular book. That's all that it is unto me. Family of God, what changes that estrangement? How do we address, if you're one this day estranged in your walk with God, what must be done in order for the estrangement to be taken away? Now my guess is most of you are probably thinking, I need to confess my sin, I need to repent. Repentance and confession, if that's what you were thinking, you would be wrong. Yes, a confession and repentance indeed factors in at some point, but get this, brothers and sisters, Christianity, unlike any other religion in the world, get this, is a religion of condescension. Every other religion uses their good conduct to ascend to the presence of God, to earn the right for God to accept them. Christianity is the only religion, and it's the only true religion, which is all about condescending. God condescending down to our level. Brothers and sisters, we love because He first loved us. We did not choose God, God chose us, John 15. And therefore, if there's going to be the removal of estrangement in our walks with God, God must be the one who acts first. God is the one who acts. Understand that. Yes, we may repent, as we'll see, and we may pray, as we'll see, but that is only secondarily. That's only in response to the condescending grace of God, wherein He comes, and get this, disciplines His people. Did you get that? If you understand that, radically transforms our view of Ezekiel and many other passages which are so strong in their description of what God does to his sinning people. You see, what is before us in this prophecy is not an angry God at the end of his rope saying, I am so sick of my people's sin, smite them. That's how Hollywood would view it. What we have here is a loving God who will not allow His people free access to their sins. This is not condemnation, this is reclamation. This is restoration. Now, harsh as it may seem, let me ask you something. You have a child, two-year-old, steps out in front of traffic, and they're moments away from death. Do you slowly and gently, with a smile on your face, reach out and try to grab them, or do you rip them out of the way? You rip them out of the way, and it might even hurt them. We don't want to hurt them, but that snatching them out of death's jaw, death's grip, It is indeed a violent act and that's exactly what God in His love for His people do in the reclamation of their souls and the reclamation of their sinning ways. And that's what we have before us this morning. This is God's Justification for why he's doing this is why this guy's explanation. Why is he doing what he's doing and thus we get this morning We're gonna look at the verses in 14 1 through 11, which described the why? Why does God do what he does? We've seen what he's done. We've seen the reason why in terms of God's people and what they've done and idolatry and the whole bit as we titled this, an expose of idolatry. But now we're gonna look at how God or why God does what he does here in this passage. Why did 586 exist in history, BC? Why did the nation fall? Why were people put in bonds? Why? Why does God discipline us in His grace? Why? What's He after? And brothers and sisters, by way of a footnote, to understand what God is after enables us to understand what is important in our Christian walk. It's to keep in step with God. If God is working here, and we think he's working there, we're going to be frustrated. So, to understand where God is working, why he's doing what he's doing, is to help us work with God. Work with the labor pains, so that they are most effective in our lives, in producing in us, the image of Jesus Christ. So let's look at why God does what he does. There's five reasons in this text. We're going to look at the first two this morning. The next week we'll wrap it up with the last three. Notice why God does what he does. God's aim in addressing the sin of his people is to lay hold of their hearts. Notice with me verse five. I the Lord, let me start in verse 4b, I the Lord will be brought to give him an answer in the manner and view of the multitude of his idols in order to lay hold of, now this word in the Hebrew is a violent term. It is used in the context of warfare, when you siege a city, pillage and plunder it. It's also used in the context of capturing criminals. It's a strong word, it's a violent word. God violently lays hold of the hearts of the house of Israel. Why is he doing what he's doing? Because God's going to snatch the hearts of his people. Now, on the surface, because of our culture, we hear this and we think one thing which is actually wrong. Remember the psychology of the Jews, the psychology of the Bible with regards to how man was understood. We understand man to be in this way. The head is our thinking, our rationale, our processing ability. The heart is our emotion, right? Just don't say you love me. Love me right with your heart. Okay, and the bowels the gut is where we in essence form our Our intuition right now that guy gave me a queer feeling in my gut man. I'll tell you what I didn't like that I had this weird feeling like so that's how we break it down in Judaism in the Bible. It was quite different in the Bible the head represented the identity of the of the individual and So when it talks about in Ephesians 6, take the helmet of salvation, the helmet that protects the head. The salvation is the assurance of salvation. Assurance of salvation protects the overall health of the Christian. That's the head in the Jewish mind. It's the identity. It's what we are. The bowels are the seat of the emotion. Okay, that's the heart. That's our equivalent of the heart. So Jewish mind, the bowels. When we look at Christ, who it says he felt compassion for them, in the Greek it means he groaned in his gut. Okay, there's this nerve that goes from the gut to the head. So he sees it, he felt a sickening in his belly. Okay, that's where the idea of the heart was. Our idea of the heart. The heart in Judaism, okay, the heart was the mind. The heart was their thinking, the rationale. And so, for example, we just saw in verse 3 and 4 where it talks about that their idols, they have set up their idols in their hearts. Remember when we looked at that? We saw that the fundamental flaw of idolatry begins with thinking thoughts about God that are ignoble. that are not worthy of Him. Idolatry is not us bowing down before pagan beings or visible icons. That's the overflow of an idolatrous heart. Idolatry begins when you and I entertain thoughts about God that are not worthy of Him. We saw that in verse 3 and in verse 4. And what were those thoughts that were not worthy of God at this time? Remember Ezekiel 8, 12, you can look back there and read it. I'll just simply describe it. They concluded two things about God. They were saying, one, the Lord does not see. That means God doesn't love us. He doesn't care about us. And secondly, the Lord has forsaken the land. That means God is not faithful. So the seed of idolatry in the hearts of God's people at this time was, God doesn't love us. God is not faithful. Okay, so understand, the heart was their thinking, the rationality. So when we come here and we see that God's first objective, why he does what he does, it's to reclaim the thinking, the thoughts, the mind, the heart of man. Okay, understand that. It's to reclaim their hearts. He's after their minds. He's after their thinking process. And truly, brothers and sisters, what we think therefore about God, we've already seen it, is of utmost importance. Understand that? I don't think that we fully grasp the importance of what we think, what we allow our minds to think of when we think about God. God is all about that. Think about it. Why did God give you his word? Why does God give us his word? In our day, broad evangelicalism would say, like neo-orthodoxy, the word of God is a portal into experiencing the divine. That's what this Bible is. Okay, so God, so we call it, now I use the same language, but think about the language in its fullness and where it came from in the 70s. We use the language of a quiet time. What's a quiet time, brothers and sisters? It's a time not where we go and we read the Word of God. It's a time where we go and we listen for the Word of God. This becomes a portal to experiencing God. Brothers and sisters, God's Word was given to instruct us, 2 Timothy 3.16. All scripture is inspired by God and its prophet is for teaching. reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. God's word was given to inform us where we lack the knowledge of the truth, to rebuke us when we stray from that truth, to correct us that we might walk in the truth, to train us that we might stay in the truth. God gave us this word not to make us feel, not to inspire us, but to educate us. Do you understand that? Jesus Christ came to this earth and one of the reasons he came was to teach. Titus 2, 11. The grace of God has appeared. Bring you salvation to all men. instructing us to deny ungodliness, Titus 2, 11-12. The grace of God is Jesus Christ personified. Christ came to instruct us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires, and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in this present age, looking for the appearing of the glory of the great God Christ Jesus. So Christ came to instruct. In fact, brothers and sisters, you know the main thing that stood out about Jesus when He walked this earth? The main thing was not that He was Miracle Max. Okay? Wow, that's Miracle Max. You know, go out there, He raises the dead, He turns stone into... He does all these great miracles. He does all these acts. What stood out about Jesus was not His compassion. was not His loving eye. What stood out to the people of God about Jesus was His teaching. Matthew 7. After preaching the Sermon on the Mount, the result was that when Jesus had finished these words, the multitudes were amazed at His teaching. They were amazed. This man's a teacher of the Word of God! Wow! Incredible. Jesus Christ came to teach. God gave us His Word to teach us. To reclaim our brains. To reclaim our hearts. Okay? Our brains. A large, therefore, a large part of the ministry of the Church in Scripture is instruction. Don't miss that. Matthew 28, 18, 19, 20, the Great Commission. All authority has been given me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore in what? Make disciples. Brothers and sisters, I remember when I was in college, Navigators, they always had, every semester they had a talk about Matthew 28. And I always left scratching my head because they made make disciples into a command for evangelizing. Now, we should evangelize, 2 Timothy 2.2, do the work of an evangelist, of course. But Matthew 28, 18 and 19, I walked away understanding, I know what that word means, mathetes, make learners of Christ. That's discipleship. That's about taking people and instructing them from God's Word, letting them walk with God's Word, letting them fail, watching them, and then coming back and starting all over, okay? This is how you failed, this is where, and this is what God's Word says to that failure. We're all disciples of Christ in that way. Therefore, what is the ministry of the church? What's the great commission? Listen to that language. The great magnanimous, the wonderful charge of God. It's to make disciples of all peoples. Incredible. It's teaching. And thus, family of God, the faithful leadership in the church, what is their objective? What's the objective of the pastor-teacher, using the language of Ephesians 4, verse 13? They are to minister unto the unity of the faith. What is that? That's doctrine. The unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God. You know the purpose and function of a godly leadership? It's to encourage and teach God's people the truth of God's word. Brothers and sisters, truth is huge unto God. In fact, if we're going to have a healthy church, a healthy church body that knows fellowship and compassion and love, is a church that shares a common confession of what is true. Listen to 1 Corinthians 1 10. Remember Paul's solution for the discord at Corinth? Now I exhort you brethren by the name of the Lord Jesus that you all agree What's he saying? He's saying that you all profess the same truth, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment. If you and I are going to know fellowship as a body, we all have to agree. What a sad state in which we live, a sad Christian world in which we live. which is fond of saying, no creed but Christ. Doctrine divides, love builds up. Brothers and sisters, that is a false dichotomy. If there's no creed but Christ, the moment you say Christ, you've just proclaimed a creed because you have to say, who is Jesus? Well, He's God, that's a creed. He's man, that's a creed. So no creed but Christ is nuts. But we live in a world, we live in a church culture which says doctrine divides, doctrine's bad. We don't want doctrine. When brothers and sisters get this, the first reason God violently broke into the lives of his people in the sixth century BC was so that he would recapture their minds with truth. These people were going off. He violently broke in to recapture them and put them in truth. Why is truth such a big deal? Why is it, brothers and sisters? Well, you got to go back to the fall. Remember Genesis? What is it that Satan did? Satan lied to Adam and Eve. So the fall of man occurred, first and foremost, with a lie. And you know what, that sets the pace for the rest of this age. Satan is the prince of power of the air. This world is under his authority and control, Luke 4. As that is the case, therefore, understand, you and I may not see the battle, you and I may not appreciate the battle, but there is a battle raging, a bloody, brutal, violent battle raging in the heavens over truth. And thus, God's will for us as He grows us in grace is to capture our minds with the truth. Listen to our struggle, therefore. Christians, what is your struggle in this world? I think if I asked you that generically, or if you ask most Christians generically, what is your struggle? We might say things like politics. We've got to get Christian senators elected. representatives, electees. We've got to pass Christian laws. We've got to boycott these stores who are doing things that violate the morality of scripture. We've got to go petition. We've got to go march. We've got to go protest. That, I think, sums up most of what we think our struggle is as a Christian. When, brothers and sisters, that doesn't even hit the surface. Paul tells us what the struggle of God's people are. 2 Corinthians 10, listen to it. Though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We're destroying high places. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God. Did you get that? Do you know what our commission on this world is? It's to destroy false teachings, false understandings about God, which are raised up against God. Right? God is this, right? When a storm hits, that's God, that's religion, that's what happens when you believe in a God. Our job is to destroy speculations and lofty things raised up against the knowledge of God. Do you understand that? That's our task. Secondly, Our task is to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. That's sanctification. You know what sanctification is? It's taking every thought captive to the obedience of his word. That's our struggle. Once again, the importance of the truth of God's Word. That's our struggle. Taking every thought and making sure every thought, inclination, desire, motive, will is subject to God's Word. Are you laboring at that, brothers and sisters? That's our labor as Christians. That's our charge. And then, fellowship. We're ready to punish all disobedience whenever your obedience is complete. You know what our job is in fellowship? It's to bring God's Word to bear upon the lives of one another. That's what it's about. That's what we're doing when we talk about the sermon, where we say, wow, this is what God taught, or this is what God's Word says. How does that apply to your life? We're simply bringing God's Word to bear to our lives. So brothers and sisters, get this, God's first. His first agenda item when it comes to reclaiming sinners to himself, reclaiming erring sheep back to himself, get this brothers and sisters, it's to reclaim their thoughts, their thinking, their theology. Now don't misunderstand, we're not talking about theology for the sake of theology, we're talking about truth that transforms. We're talking about you and I not simply affirming Jesus as Lord, we all do that, but living light of his Lordship. That's what we're talking about. That's what God's doing here. He's reclaiming. Every one of these Jews in Ezekiel all would have said, Jesus Christ, or God is king. God is sovereign. God is Lord. God is loving. God is faithful. But they weren't living that way. In their hearts, they were living as if God no longer loved them, and they were living as if God had given up on his covenant promises. But if you ask them what their creed was, they would have spouted it out rightly. So brothers and sisters, we're not after simply proclaiming the same truth, it's professing the same truth. We're not simply confessing, but professing. We're saying, indeed, this is true. And if it's true, it means changing the way I think and live and my motives, the way I fight, the way I love, the way I serve, the way I view God's people, the way I view my job, the way I drive in traffic, the way I view people who cut me off. Brothers and sisters, God is about transforming us by our minds, transforming our minds and so transforming us with a transformed mind. Man, we need to realize this because brothers and sisters, there's a universal question from the fall that floats above our heads just a couple inches every single day that frequently interacts with us in our day and that is this, will you as a child of God be bound by God's word or will God's word be bound by your desires? That's the question, any moment. Will our knowledge and understanding of God and his kingdom be derived from his word? Or will we allow our understanding of God to be derived from our experience and therefore imputing that upon God's word? Will you be word driven or will the word of God be driven by you? And we live in the age today where the inclination will be to be allowing God's word to be driven by us. Guys, I want this. Therefore, I'm going to go to God's Word and show you how God's Word supports this. I want this agenda. I want that. I profess this. And therefore, I'll go to God's Word and read into it all kinds of things to support the lifestyle that I want to live. Family of God, we are bound to be people who are driven by God's word at all times. And yet sadly, I fear that as a generation of Christians, we're losing this battle. Truth no longer is objective today, it's subjective. You realize that? Truth is a subjective reality. Truth is true to you. So you're here, back when I was, 30 years ago, you heard it at school. And that is, it's true for you. That's good. It's good that that's true for you. But that's not true for me. Brothers and sisters, truth today is subjective. If that's 30 years ago, what's now? It's subjective. It's something over which we exert our authority and our autonomy. We dictate what is right, what is wrong. And thus, today, the focus of the church has shifted from being a place where truth is proclaimed and people are discipled in the truth. Realize that. We've switched. We've gone from that to a place now where you can come and get two things. You can come and enter into the presence of God and experience the divine through our worship. Today, the product of the growing popular church is not truth, typically. I'm speaking in generalities. The product of the typically growing popular church is an experience. That's what we're after. And secondly, the church used to be known for Bible studies and opportunities to learn and teach and learn God's Word. Now, it's characterized by gatherings in which God's people emote around the Word of God. Brothers and sisters, God is saying, man, my first agenda and my discipline and grace in your life is that you and I will be bound and subject and therefore driven by God's Word. Did you get that? And that is why, that is the method behind the madness at times in our lives. Where is God working? There. Secondly, would you notice where God's working in the life of a believer? Notice with me verse eight, Ezekiel chapter 14. Speaking of the false prophets, verse eight, and I shall set my face against that man and make him a sign, a proverb, and I'll cut him off from among my people. So you will know that I am the Lord. This dovetails quite nicely with what we just saw in verse five. The battle that is raging right now on this earth is the battle for the heart and thus the mind of man. That's what's raging. And you know what the telos of this battle is, brothers and sisters? That's the battle. It's raging for the hearts and minds of God's people. The hearts, the minds of God's people. You know what the telos of this battle is? authority. To whom will you give allegiance? What is it that will govern you in your life? That's the telos. It's always either a profession or the rejection of God as Lord and Master. Don't miss that. We'll go back to the fall. First thing we saw about the fall is that Satan said, God's word is, that's not what God says. So he transformed truth into a lie and Adam and Eve functioned according to a lie. But then secondly, what was the end? What was the goal? Satan drew into question whether or not God had the right to have authority over man because he's God, because he's the creator. The fall, therefore, revolves around who is the authority in your life. Is it God or is it you? Rayburn wrote these words, what precisely occurred in Genesis 3? In answer, our first parents permitted the serpent through their embarrassment with God's authority over them, and that still is an embarrassment to us as Christians. to challenge God's word with an alternative interpretation of the tree. When the pair demonstrated their unwillingness to believe God on the basis of his bare claim authority over them by remaining silent in the face of the serpent's lie. Rather than saying, God is the Lord, God says it, that settles it, he's the master, they remained silent. They, by that silence, permitted Satan to reduce the word of God to a mere hypothesis. This means, however, in a universe created by God, that the center of authority for man shifted from another, which is God, to himself, to man. Man demanded that he become his own authority and that he determine for himself what is true and what is false. Unquote. Accordingly, it is the question, brothers and sisters, the question of God's authority that continues to drive man in his battle against God. Don't forget that. Don't miss that. Understand, as sinners, we hate God. That's what the fall led us to as a race. We are a race of God-haters. We don't... Now, don't misunderstand. We're not a race of religious haters. We love religion. We love going to religious places, but we have a war still raging, there's a war still raging in our hearts, even though we're saved, against God. His sovereignty, His right to rule a person's life, His unquestionable will and purpose, His authority. Man, you wanna stir up a crowd into a frenzy today in our culture? Tell them that God is in charge of a woman's womb. I've seen signs, get the church out of my womb. Guys, the church is not in your womb, God is. And God has the right to sovereignly dictate what happens in that womb. Not man, not you, much less the parent. Two, indicate that a person's not free to do whatever they want in the privacy of their own home, but they're subject and bound to what God wants them to do in the privacy of their own home. Boy, float that and see how far that goes in a secular audience. How about another one? Proclaim the teaching of God's Word that homosexuality is a sin to be repented of. It's an illness that can be fixed. I'll tell you what, put that on your Facebook and your Facebook will be shut down. It's a war, brothers and sisters. It's a war against God as the authority. Who's the authority? Me? My feelings? My inclinations? Or God? Henry Law wrote in the Puritan, man's secret chambers of imagination swarm with thoughts tainted with dislike of God, his name, his nature, his perfections, his cause, his people, his word, his scepter, his kingdom, his Christ. Sin has strong inclinations and they all are arrayed against God's righteous ways. So secondly, why is it that God did what he did here, violently swooped in? Because brothers and sisters, his child in their sin is always in the cross hairs of death. And the two areas that are most detrimental to him, the first two are one, will they be bound and governed by the truth of God's word or by their own imaginations? And two, will they be bound and governed by God's authority or their own will and whim? That's always it, and brothers and sisters, just by way of footnote, you know the course of world, I'm sorry, the course of redemptive as well as world history, where it's going. You may not like this if you don't know Christ. Philippians 2, 9 through 11, therefore, after his humiliation, God highly exalted Christ and bestowed on him the name which is above every name. That at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Do you know where world history is going? It's all going towards one point in world and redemptive history. And that is that moment where every man, woman, child who has ever lived living or ever will live, will bow their knee before God, some willingly, those are Christians, some unwillingly, those who are not saved, and all confess, Jesus Christ is indeed the master. Not me, not Satan, not man's opinion, not 51% of our population. Jesus Christ is the majority, always. Jesus Christ is Lord. That's what God is working. in His sanctifying grace in the life of His people, bringing them to the point where they say, wow, I'm not Lord of my life. I'm not in charge of my life. Christ is in charge of my life. And because He's my Savior, He's a good being. I mean, He is a good being, not because He's my Savior. He's a good being, and as my Savior, He's working all things together for good. So I may not like what's occurred in my life, But I will submit to the authority and the lordship and the prerogative of God in my life. That, brothers and sisters, is where God is bringing us when he deals with us in our sin. And yet, brothers and sisters, let me exhort you as I wrap this up with a strange idea. As moral beings, we have the right to do whatever we want. Yes, God is Lord, so we must, in the end, give deference to Him. But today, our submission to God is ever and always subject to our will, is it not? And so, church attendance, Bible reading and study, Sabbath activities, church relationships, our willingness to forgive another person, what we do with our money and time, all are viewed as optional, and more importantly, all are viewed as personal. That's a personal decision that I make. how frequently I fellowship with God's people, whether or not I read God's Word. That's a personal decision. It's a personal decision. What I do and how I spend my time on the Lord's day. And brothers and sisters, as we've seen, God in fact does have specific demands when it comes to these areas and so much more. He is the Lord of life. According to what is behind God's disciplining hand in our lives, it's to bring the child of God to a fuller understanding of God's rights and claims as sovereign Lord, and thus bringing every thought captive of the child of God to obedience to Jesus Christ. And in this regard, that is what sanctification is all about. Let me close with a couple verses. Romans 14, 7. Paul wrote, speaking of sanctification, for not one of us lives for himself, and not one dies for himself. For if we live, we live for the Lord. If we die, we die for the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord's. For to this end, Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living." Did you get that? You know why Christ came? He came that he might be Lord both of the living and the dead. And thus, the life in response is life which says, Lord, my hands are your hands. My job is your job. My marriage is your marriage. My time is your time. My pleasure is your pleasure. Everything about me is subject to your will, your plans, your governance. Romans 6, 12. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey its lusts. Get this, I love this too. Reality, either Christ is your Lord or sin is your Lord. You think you're Lord of your life? Then you've bought the lie of Satan. That's what Satan did to Adam and Eve to get them to rebel against God, promising them autonomy, when after they rebelled against God, they became subject slaves of Satan. So Adam and Eve gave up the authority, the sovereignty of a loving, gracious, good God to serve a weak, wretched sinful being evil wicked being known as Lucifer Wow, that's the options. Either you're a slave of God or you're a slave of sin. So Paul says, do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you shall obey its lusts. And do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness. No, rather, present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead. Here I am, Lord. My life is yours. And you're not just saying that on Sunday. You're saying that Monday by how you live, by the decisions that you make. Here's my life Lord present yourself to God as those alive from the dead in your members as Instruments of righteousness to God for sin shall not be master over you God is the master and thus first Corinthians 619 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who's in you who you have from God that you were not your own? therefore glorify God in your body Incredible glorify God in your body So brothers and sisters, understand this, we're looking at a loving God. A loving God who because of our sin, we become estranged from God. So what does God do? In His love and compassion and grace, He swoops down and at times violently, yes, He's gentle and gracious, but at times the swooping has to be violent to get us out of the way of harm. He violently breaks into our lives for two purposes, and we'll look at five in the end, but two this morning. to recapture our brains, to recapture our theology, to recapture our thinking such that we go, man, I need to be bound by God's word. I need to know this so that this word transforms me, right? I need to be people of the word so that the word of God might drive me. Isn't that what we're after, being spirit-filled? To be Spirit-filled, maritime term, filled is the word used to refer to the wind filling the sails of a ship to guide it. For us to be Spirit-filled is the same as being Word-filled. Our calling is to be driven and governed by God's Word. Secondly, God in His disciplined grace draws near to us and at times violently. reestablishes in our thinking, in our minds, in our living, that he is Lord. Not me, not public opinion, not man, not Satan, not sin, but God. And the question is, brothers and sisters, and I know the answer, as people who love Christ, what's your heart's desire today? The answer is, oh, to be bound by God's word and to live in light of his sovereign authority over my life. Brothers and sisters, if that's true, then we have something in common here as a church. And that commonality is what will lead and provide for rich, deep, and abiding fellowship and walking together as the day draws near. Let's pray. Father God, we bow before you this day and we thank you for your word. Your word that not only is that which ought to govern our minds, but Lord, informs us this morning of the very same thing, as well as the end of your discipline and grace is us submitting to your sovereign claim of authority. Lord, we confess that in our hearts there's a rebel. Just as Moby Dick described the sinful heart's response to Christ in the form of the great whale, Lord, we want to conquer Christ. We want to control you and tell you and dictate to you and pontificate what you and what you should be. Father, forgive us for this war that wages, even when we see it, Lord, even when we don't want it, this battle called sin, which wages war in our flesh, making us a prisoner at times of our minds. Lord, with Paul, we say, Lord, deliver us from such the battle. We love you, Lord. The things we want to do, we want, God, grant them, we pray. Grant that we would be a people who love you and are bound by your word, a people who love your word, and a people, therefore, who delight in studying it. And then, Lord, grant us the grace to be a people who delight in living it, endeavoring to live it. And when we fail, God, continue to give us the assurance of grace that comes from your word, that you are our God and we are your children. And that'll never change. Then secondly, Lord, give us the grace to submit to your sovereignty, to submit to your authority. Lord, that is such an ugly expression today in our culture. We will be fools to profess this, but Lord, that's our heart's desire. We want to be bound by you and not sin. Lord, we would rather be bound by the God we know than to think we're free and yet to be enslaved to a demon. the devil. God, thank you for the deliverance we have in Christ. Grant us grace, therefore, to bow the knee before Jesus and say, O Lord Jesus, our delight is to do your will, which is written in your word. Father, we pray for the one who does not know you. Please save them from their sin. Open their eyes to see the rebellion that is part and parcel of their existence against you. No doubt words were stated this morning in their lives that were offensive to them. God made this offense, let them see it's not a preacher that has offended them, but the living God. Oh Lord, would you grant them eyes to see and grace to repent and Lord to confess therefore their sin and to come and bow their knee before the Lordship of Christ while they can willingly today. For Lord, we know someday we all gloriously will bow before you and profess your lordship. Father, thank you. Thank you for your word. Continue to work the work of grace, the discipline and grace in our lives, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.